Uber passengers will be able to tip their driver without having to hand over cash, under a series of improvements announced by the cab booking firm today.
From tomorrow, passengers will be given the option of adding a gratuity via the Uber app.
Drivers will further benefit by being able to charge passengers 20p per minute who keep them waiting. The clock will start two minutes after the cab arrives to pick up.
A third change will give customers less time to cancel a cab, down from five minutes to two. Passengers in London who cancel their driver more than two minutes after booking will pay a £5 cancellation fee. The waiting and cancellation charges will be rolled out later this month.
The changes, announced today in a blog by Jo Bertram, regional general manager of Uber in the UK, come as the US-based firm prepares to challenge an employment tribunal ruling that classed its 40,000 UK drivers as workers rather than self-employed.
Uber is facing a review of its Transport for London licence to operate in the capital. Yesterday it was revealed that the Met police was concerned at its failure to report sex attacks and other “serious crimes” by its drivers.
A freedom of information response revealed that Inspector Neil Billany, head of the Metropolitan police’s taxi and private hire unit, had “significant concern” that Uber seemed to be “deciding what [crimes] to report”, telling police only about “less serious matters” that would be “less damaging to [its] reputation”.
In the year to February, Scotland Yard recorded 48 allegations of sexual assault involving Uber drivers.
